Tuesday, March 19, 2024
EditorialSudden Impact Special: TNA is Red Hot

Sudden Impact Special: TNA is Red Hot

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Hey fans, DK Wrestling Savior here with another special edition of Sudden Impact. As you can tell from the title,
TNA is on some sort of a roll right now. After weeks and weeks of sleepwalking
their way through episodes in the Impact Zone, they took the show on the road
and they have made a serious effort to improve over recent weeks. This all
started with Slammiversary where they pulled in a very nice crowd in a place
that’s closer to home for them. I never read an official attendance report but
between 3,000 and 4,000 fans seems to be the range they were in. They followed
up Slammiversary with a live Impact in Bethlehem, PA which is a far suburb of
Philadelphia. That episode was great and was certainly leaps and bounds ahead
of recent episodes to close out the Impact Zone. The Philadelphia crowd was
hot. It probably wasn’t a huge crowd but they were really into it and it shows
how great fans from this area really are when they’re passionate about
something. After this set of tapings, we get to enjoy one of the very few
crowds that are even hotter than Philly, New York City. (in case you’re
wondering, Chicago and the United Kingdom are the others). So, what I’m going
to attempt here is piece together what changed over the course of the last 2
weeks. I want to seriously buy in, but is there something to buy into, or is
this just fool’s gold?

Giving the Fan Something to
React to:

This element right here is
something I thought they were missing in just about every way dating back to
the Aces & Eights days. Sure they were a heel faction and got booed,
however, they didn’t change anything up. It was the same stuff over and over.
This was a major contributing factor to the failure of their road show
experiment. When it’s the same thing over and over, the fans get tired, drained,
restless, cranky, etc. Fast forward to Slammiversary from two weeks ago. What
is the one thing TNA did in Dallas, TX? They gave the fans all sorts of reasons
to react. There were great spots in the majority of matches. There was the Von
Erich’s, especially Kevin with the Iron Claw. They involved members of the
Dallas Cowboys. That night was full of reasons for the fans to react. The same
thing happened in Bethlehem, PA last week. There was a Twitter War between
Dreamer and Dixie that they brought on to the screen. Bring Dreamer anywhere near
Philly and NYC and he’s the man anyway. Bobby Roode returned. It was the second
great night in a row for TNA.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t have
high hopes when I heard they were taping two shows in a single night. However, I
was proven wrong because last night’s episode was very good as well. When they
took Impact on the road last year, you could see, and more importantly, hear
the effect of the crowd. Last night however, Philly kept it going. The next two
weeks, we have more from the Philly crowd from Friday night’s tapings. It will
be a new crowd as well so I expect this to continue. I don’t read spoilers so
even though the next month and half of episodes are already taped, I will watch
on Thursday nights and it will all be brand new to me.

Consistency in Storylines

The next point I want to touch on
is the consistency in their storylines. They’ve been developing storylines that
always seem to progress on a week-to-week basis. This time last year, TNA
always left me scratching my head about why they did this, that or the third.
Some things didn’t make any sense at all. And their worst habit of all was
timing of segments that are meant to have an impact. The debut of Tito Ortiz
sticks out. They built it up for weeks. Then he comes out. Mike Tenay unenthusiastically
blurts, “That’s Victor Ortiz”. He stands there and the camera goes dark. It had
about as much impact as a rain shower in Seattle. However, the last couple of
weeks, it really seems like storylines are flowing better and showing more
consistency. That’s what makes for intriguing television. Sure, we all want the
best quality wrestling, but the more intriguing thing is the feuds and
storylines that accompany said quality wrestling. I find myself at this point,
waiting to see what’s going to happen next. I haven’t felt this way about
wrestling in quite a while. We all know that with Taryn Terrell bringing up the
Gail and her being tied at 1, they’re eventually going to clash. Kurt Angle was
named the new Director of Wrestling Operations. I don’t know how I feel about
this yet, but since it just happened, we’ll have to see. Both Dixie and MVP
have been stripped of their powers over wrestling operations. How will that
play out? Eric Young’s rematch happens next week. What’s the next chapter in
the Tommy Dreamer/Dixie feud? You know it’s going to carry over big time into
NYC. There’s a lot of good stuff going on. And the 6-Sided Ring returns!!!

Not Biting Off More Than They
Can Chew

TNA seems to have always fallen
victim here. They always tried to do too much, too quickly. Last year they took
Impact on the road because they knew that would’ve been better for them.
However, they executed it poorly because there was a major lack of preparation.
None of us are sure what the rest of this year will bring. I can only imagine
that with two more weeks from the Philly tapings and twelve weeks from the NYC
tapings, that they will be putting another plan in place to take them through
the rest of the year. We also know that Bound for Glory is going to be in Japan.
So that’s the short-term. What about the long term? Will they be booking two or
three nights worth of tapings back in the Dallas area? Maybe they’ll do a
Canadian tour. We know they’ll be back in the United Kingdom in January. The
point is, they seem to have much better strategy now. While it may be a short-lived,
we can always hope that this is a turning point of sorts for the company.

In closing, what TNA has been
able to accomplish lately is very good. In fact, I’m willing to call it impressive.
There are less negative news items on them. I’m reading less negative comments
about them. It seems that just 3 weeks ago, Ryan Clark was throwing the word “Ouch!”
out there at the end of every TNA article posted. If I’m not mistaken, I did
see the word “Wow” posted on the title of a spoiler article from the Destination
X tapings. I don’t’ know if it was a good Wow or a bad Wow because I don’t read
spoilers but, I can only assume with the positive posts about the company
lately, it’s a good Wow.

I understand that this doesn’t
mean that TNA is going to start being legit competition for WWE. As I like to
put on all my articles, I hope the WWE fanboys stay away and go drool over
every little tweet sent out by a WWE superstar and allow us TNA fans to enjoy
this ride. If history is any indication, this ride won’t last forever. But we
can always hope, right?

Thank you everyone for reading. I’m
looking forward to next week’s episode of Impact. Have a great weekend and be
safe.

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